This chapter examines how Toomer's interest in class-conscious radical politics was at best transitory and immature. Drawing on his early left-wing journalism, correspondence, handwritten 1936 ...
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This chapter examines how Toomer's interest in class-conscious radical politics was at best transitory and immature. Drawing on his early left-wing journalism, correspondence, handwritten 1936 autobiography, and psychoanalytic records from the late 1940s, the chapter argues that Toomer not only held strongly left-wing views during the Cane period but also remained in some respects a man of the left throughout his life. It also proposes that his social constructionist view of race, usually attributed to his situation as a light-skinned black man able to “pass,” is also traceable to his awareness of race as a product of capitalist exploitation and state-sanctioned racial violence—ideas that are allegorically displayed in his poem Banking Coal.Less

Touching Naked Reality : Socialism, the Labor Movement, and the Embers of Revolution

Barbara Foley

Published in print: 2014-07-01

This chapter examines how Toomer's interest in class-conscious radical politics was at best transitory and immature. Drawing on his early left-wing journalism, correspondence, handwritten 1936 autobiography, and psychoanalytic records from the late 1940s, the chapter argues that Toomer not only held strongly left-wing views during the Cane period but also remained in some respects a man of the left throughout his life. It also proposes that his social constructionist view of race, usually attributed to his situation as a light-skinned black man able to “pass,” is also traceable to his awareness of race as a product of capitalist exploitation and state-sanctioned racial violence—ideas that are allegorically displayed in his poem Banking Coal.

This book begins by presenting the common understanding that the Communist Party hindered black cultural expression during the 1940s. The chapter shows that the Communist-led Left promoted several ...
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This book begins by presenting the common understanding that the Communist Party hindered black cultural expression during the 1940s. The chapter shows that the Communist-led Left promoted several cultural organizations to draw black cultural workers into its orbit. Most important was the National Negro Congress (NNC) to which numerous black artists and writers contributed their talents. The NNC was a coalition of civil rights groups and labor organizations. It was officially launched in 1936 at a national conference in Chicago. It reached out to the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which heavily recruited African Americans into the labor movement. NNC organizers also worked on the cultural front by convening panels with artists and writers at its conferences, organizing campaigns against discrimination in Hollywood, and holding mass rallies to fight discrimination.Less

Introduction

Brian Dolinar

Published in print: 2012-05-07

This book begins by presenting the common understanding that the Communist Party hindered black cultural expression during the 1940s. The chapter shows that the Communist-led Left promoted several cultural organizations to draw black cultural workers into its orbit. Most important was the National Negro Congress (NNC) to which numerous black artists and writers contributed their talents. The NNC was a coalition of civil rights groups and labor organizations. It was officially launched in 1936 at a national conference in Chicago. It reached out to the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which heavily recruited African Americans into the labor movement. NNC organizers also worked on the cultural front by convening panels with artists and writers at its conferences, organizing campaigns against discrimination in Hollywood, and holding mass rallies to fight discrimination.

This book concludes by placing the works of Langston Hughes, Ollie Harrington, and Chester Himes against the background of the left-wing political movement that nurtured several black writers and ...
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This book concludes by placing the works of Langston Hughes, Ollie Harrington, and Chester Himes against the background of the left-wing political movement that nurtured several black writers and artists. In their works, they advanced an unrelenting race and class critique. By revisiting their creations, one can see evidence of an enduring radicalism that extended beyond the dates of the Depression. Today’s African American artists have looked back to this generation for examples of how to produce work that can have an impact. In recent years, a cottage industry of African American popular literature has emerged. The bestselling success of Terry McMillan’s books—Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got her Groove Back—awakened the white publishing industry to an untapped market.Less

Conclusion : Keeping the Memory of Survival Alive

Brian Dolinar

Published in print: 2012-05-07

This book concludes by placing the works of Langston Hughes, Ollie Harrington, and Chester Himes against the background of the left-wing political movement that nurtured several black writers and artists. In their works, they advanced an unrelenting race and class critique. By revisiting their creations, one can see evidence of an enduring radicalism that extended beyond the dates of the Depression. Today’s African American artists have looked back to this generation for examples of how to produce work that can have an impact. In recent years, a cottage industry of African American popular literature has emerged. The bestselling success of Terry McMillan’s books—Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got her Groove Back—awakened the white publishing industry to an untapped market.